> This “making a global inference based on the beaches we’ve personally been to” is going to be deceptive in either direction of the argument.
I've been to beaches on four continents and every. single. one. The only place you do not see[1] trash is where someone has specifically picked up there, recently. That tends to be places around resorts and people's homes. Unless someone does it out of their own goodwill or is paid to, the trash just floats up and accumulates.
There's a place for healthy skepticism, but not denial.
[1] You don't see it, but microplastics are thoroughly distributed through the ocean by this point. There is literally no way of cleaning up microplastic pollution at this point. We can only improve the optics at our scale.
> There's a place for healthy skepticism, but not denial.
I’m not saying I’m necessarily denying your premise, at least not wholesale, but what is the point of skepticism if it doesn’t include the possibility of rejecting a premise?
It’s like saying “I’ll allow you to ask questions but ultimately you have to come my conclusion”
We can be passionate and rational at the same time.
We're in the middle of a discussion about plastic waste, and some people add to the discussion by posting their personal experiences as counter to people who have clearly no personal experiences, and some other people push back which what sounds like rational skepticism but is really just shifting the burden of proof to an absurd level, like they are going to dedicate years of their life to visit a representative sample of beaches to even post a comment.
There's a point where skepticism becomes more than just irritating, but entirely subtractive from the discussion. It's hard to know what your intentions are from that pushback, but it was borderline IMHO, and it certainly muddies the waters.
I'll be completely open about my intentions. I want people to stop fucking up my river and, damn it, it's not China or India's fault. OP is a complete distraction from a real problem that exists where I live. I'd like to dump a few bags of garbage I picked up from the river on their lawn and see what they think about some vague plan to clean up the Ganges.
There were several weaknesses with your argument that I was hoping you to strengthen;
- you were making yourself prone to availability bias; I've been to beaches recently and none of those have the problems you mention. That doesn't mean the problem doesn't exist, it means we don't get to make sweeping generalization from the partial reality we contact. Your original rebuttal to the OP was "have you ever been to a beach lately"
- appeal to emotions; I'm personally sorry to hear your local beach is in heartbreaking condition, but that alone does not amplify the strength of your claim that "beaches are covered with litter". In fact it makes it more easy to refute for anyone who doesn't readily sympathize with your story, and that would harm what I assume to be your ultimate goal which is a reduced pollution.
- overgeneralization: you're perfectly entitled to talk about your personal experience, but when you assert that as a method of establishing the global truth, that is the motion that brings the burden of proof on you, not me pointing that out. Maybe keep the strength of your assertion in proportion to the data you personally have.
It might look like waters are muddied for you, but I think you might be the only one in confusion probably because you seem to be very emotional about this topic. Which is OK, like I said being passionate is OK, but the weaknesses in your argumentation will only hurt your cause.
This exactly the kind of snooty academic dialogue that is subtractive. A personal attack couched as some kind of psychological diagnosis. "You're being emotional." Please deal with the substance of arguments, and don't make the person the subject of discussion. That's textbook distraction and is a logical fallacy.
I'll be getting back to my representative sampling of the world's beaches. And you made a mistake in that I didn't claim that "all beaches are littered". Someone else posted that. I wrote, "I've been to beaches on four continents and every. single. one." That's about my experiences.
> appeal to emotions; I'm personally sorry to hear your local beach is in heartbreaking condition
You also misattributed this as an appeal to emotions. I have a local problem. People are arguing about problems in other countries as excuse to block action here. Stop doing that.
> overgeneralization:
Again, I didn't. I pointed out the scale of the problem is at least as big as my personal experience. It is, in fact, larger than that.
This side turn is subtractive from the discussion and I hope you would consider not replying again with how wrong I am and how my arguments are so bad.
> This exactly the kind of snooty academic dialogue that is subtractive.
It might feel like it is subtracting from your sense of being right, which I am not saying you’re definitely not, but I think some readers might find it valuable in terms of reaching to more well-thought-out conclusions.
> A personal attack couched as some kind of psychological diagnosis. "You're being emotional."
I'm sorry you felt attacked, that wasn't my intention. Having emotions is a human condition, not a psychological diagnosis, and I thought I made it clear that I didn't find anything demeaning about it. You just can't base your arguments mainly on it though.
> Please deal with the substance of arguments, and don't make the person the subject of discussion
It so happens you made your personal experience and your feeling about it the grounding of your argument; making rebuttals on that basis is not making it personal, it is actually an argument against making things personal. And at no point I invalidated your experience or emotions or your personhood.
> You also misattributed this as an appeal to emotions. I have a local problem. People are arguing about problems in other countries as excuse to block action here. Stop doing that.
Maybe the readers were mislead when you talked about 4 continents, especially after an opener of "have you been to any beaches recently". It wasn't clear, at least to me, you were interested in talking about the local phenomena. But thanks for clarifying that.
Let's get one thing clear though, since we can't read people's minds, it is equally undesirable ascribing intentions of blocking action and other negative predictions salient to you in your mind, to others. So I'll kindly ask you to refrain from that first.
> I hope you would consider not replying again with how wrong I am and how my arguments are so bad.
I've considered and still I think it would be to the benefit of the community to remove the confusion between the local-global, personal-general, emotional-rational. If you are upset about receiving responses, you always have the option of removing yourself from the discussion first. Asking others to stop talking is a bit censor-y.
> especially after an opener of "have you been to any beaches recently"
I didn't write that, please check the thread. That was someone else.
> > don't make the person the subject of discussion
Each time I replied I brought the discussion back on topic and strengthened my arguments but your entire reply is about me again, and there is precious little that steer it back to a good resolution.
> you always have the option of removing yourself from the discussion first. Asking others to stop talking is a bit censor-y.
There is a different, meta-level dialog embedded in our dialog, but this terribly ironic juxtaposition is exactly the kind of distracting, subtractive, thing I meant. I regret this exchange terribly at this point. I'll go back to picking up garbage, since in my experience, that is the only activity that reliably has impact.
> > especially after an opener of "have you been to any beaches recently"
I didn't write that, please check the thread. That was someone else.
Sorry I was confused about this, but the context to which you seemed showed up in defense of; namely a personal "observable"ism as a sufficient means to define the nature of a global phenomena, makes the point stand.
> There is a different, meta-level dialog embedded in our dialog, but this terribly ironic juxtaposition is exactly the kind of distracting, subtractive, thing I meant.
I've been following that meta dialogue very closely and here's what I wish we can agree on. Distraction and subtraction hinges on our personal formulation to solve the problem at hand.
My formulation strongly presupposes that rational argumentation can scale through time and people better than an emotional and personal appeal, at least in forums similar to this. Your formulation seems to presuppose that concentrating on the emotionality of your personal experience and impressing the audience to action through that is a better way to get results. You seem to feel any poking holes in the logic is a disservice because it takes away from that concentration of emotions and impressions.
To the extent these approaches are at odds (and I don't think they necessarily are) any one could accuse the opponent formulation of being subtractive, distracting, action stopping etc.
My plea is for you to see that you're willfully asserting a supremacy of your particular formulation in this meta-dialogue, without clear evidence that it is the case, and with a desire to evacuate alternative formulations out of an open forum.
> I'll go back to picking up garbage, since in my experience, that is the only activity that reliably has impact.
Since you've shared this, it is fair game to ask about it, and I know it might piss you off but bear with me because it has a point; is it an impact to the environment or impact to your conscience? One could cut their arm to feed the hungry, but how far could that go for making a change?
I'm bringing this up because it ties back to my original point of taking time to make sure we have the right formulation. The observable, the immediate, the emotional is super-salient to us but that doesn't automatically mean more true, more effective and ultimately the best thing to follow.
There is a huge difference between seeing a piece of "trash" like a soda bottle or two every couple acres of sand and a beach "covered" in trash. In my life I have only seen one "beach" "covered" in trash in person and that was Race Point at Fishers Island New York. It is where much of the water exchange with the open ocean and the eastern end of long island sound occurs so it stands to reason that stuff would collect there. A mile away there is a pristine sand beach. At race point there was also a lot of drift wood when I visited including whole tree trunks that had washed up. Much of the human created waste was old, including metal debries like very old very rusted rifle bullet casings presumeably from soliders at the now abandoned pre world war two fort behind the beach. Who knows the beach may have been the fort's dump.
I've been to beaches on four continents and every. single. one. The only place you do not see[1] trash is where someone has specifically picked up there, recently. That tends to be places around resorts and people's homes. Unless someone does it out of their own goodwill or is paid to, the trash just floats up and accumulates.
There's a place for healthy skepticism, but not denial.
[1] You don't see it, but microplastics are thoroughly distributed through the ocean by this point. There is literally no way of cleaning up microplastic pollution at this point. We can only improve the optics at our scale.